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All we do is lose the essence of who we are

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rayraydRemember that child that saw the world as brand new and awesome,? Remember that child who had unbreakable faith and faced fear with conviction? Remember when you saw life as an adventure both in your imagination and day-to-day life? Remember when that child was forced to be hidden within you by society and your peers? Why does it have to be that we must put away the goodness of Ourselves in order to live in the world? Yes the bible speaks of putting away childish things, it was speaking of the immaturity of being a child and the naivety. The essence of who you are was formed during childhood and that part being a child we shouldn’t had left behind. We allow the stress, competition and rigidness of adult life to become more important than all our loves, friendships and even sometimes family. We keep who we are close to our vest and rarely show others who we truly are. We do such in hopes of protecting ourselves but in the end all we do is lose the essence of who we are.

We should be who we truly are and not hide the wondrous person god had made us to be. We may be ever-changing but there is a core of our personality we always have and should embrace. That silly, playful and all loving child within is the person God had meant us to be. That child that has no hate, anger or jealousy beyond a fleeting moment, that child that loves everyone and forgives quicker than he can be hurt. That child who looks for the goodness is everyone he meets. It takes a brave person to be and show their true self and that inner child.

Do not let the world and its cold rigidness hold back the warm and loving nature God has made within you. For its better to be a child of God than a person of the world.

Ray Barbier

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Live each day as if it was your first day and your last

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024 We only have a short time to experience, enjoy and live our life. Some of us have longer some have shorter but in the grand scheme of things all our lifetimes are but a drop in an endless sea of time. This is why we shouldn’t hold on to negative emotions and thoughts for any length of time because they are usually a waste of energy and cause more harm to ourselves than it does to anyone else. We should cherish each moment we have, be thankful for each day we are blessed to wake and see. We should help one another and be kind, for if we all did such this world would be a much happier place to live in. We all want happiness and we all want happiness for our family and friends. Even though our vision of what happiness may vary in the end it’s all about living in peace and harmony with each other. Kind thoughts, words and actions are the key to happiness for both you and those you interact with. Sure there are some people for one reason or another choose to be bitter, unresponsive to kindness or love. But that shouldn’t sway you from the path of kindness, peace and love.

Live each day as if it was your first day and your last, See the world as a child and cherish is like a person who would die tomorrow. Look at everything in wonder like it’s the first time you’ve seen it. Watch the sunrise and enjoy it like you did as a young child. Embrace life and accept one another as is. For none of us truly knows when our day will come to meet our end. So many family members and friends I have had have already left this world. And so much was unsaid and undone.

Live each day as both the child and the elderly, keep wonder in your heart and be thankful as well as cherish each morning.

Ray Barbier

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The reason for the season

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p10121The holiday season is upon us and the sale ads are pouring out like a tropical storm. Time to go spend your hard-earned cash on Thanksgiving diner and Christmas presents. Just remember through out all of the spending frenzy and the sales the reason for the season. Thanksgiving is the day to give thanks for another year of survival and for the blessing of having food upon your table. Christmas of course is the celebrated day of our savior’s birth and the salvation he brought us all. Don’t get caught up in all the commercialization of the holidays and remember to focus on the family more than on the gifts you are going to give and receive.

May God bless your Holiday Season and Remember to Give thanks every day for the blessings in our life.

Happy Holidays

Ray Barbier

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My dad taught me one last lesson

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scan0002 The loss of a love one is always a hard thing for someone to cope with, no matter how close or estranged your relationship you had with the deceased you still had love as a bond between you. It has been almost 6 years since my dad passed away, even though the pain isn’t as severe within my heart it’s just as deep as it ever was. I thin about my dad often, funny though I don’t seem to think about his shortcomings, I think more about the times I spent with him as a child, teen and young adult years. I don’t care to remember the bad times because they don’t matter as much as the good times I had with him. I can remember his silly laugh and his kind heart he had. Unfortunately we did grow somewhat apart before his death, between me living my own life and my stupidity of holding on to mistakes both of us made in my early years and also my mom and him divorcing. I regret  I let such pet things stand in the way of my love for my dad, but in the end we did find peace between us and the last image I have of him was him with a childlike smile telling me good night.

Seems we never realize how silly or stupid we are about stuff until we loose a loved one and look back to see how much time was wasted on petty emotions such as anger and bitterness. It did teach me a lot losing my dad but it also cost me a lot in many ways as well. After 5+ years I have come close to being back to normal with a few omissions by choice and a few scars to remind me of my mistakes. My dad taught me one last lesson through his passing away, he taught me never to take anyone you love for granted for you never know when their number or even yours will come up.

Thank you Dad (Stephen M. Barbier) for everything you did for me, how hard you worked for us all. And may you Rest in peace knowing we all love and remember you as the good-hearted man you truly were.

Ray Barbier

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We get so caught up in the whirlwind

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"Where there is love there is life."  Stop, look around and see all the faces around you and embrace the love you have for them. Life is way too short to allow work to completely consume you and your life, we need to maintain balance or we wont survive long at such a heavy and fast pace. We must constantly remind ourselves of what is our true priority, the health and happiness of ourselves and those we hold dear. No money, company or idea is more important nor greater than those we love and the love we share with them. Even friends are an important part of the balance we keep. We need our friends to help keep us sane and give us an escape from work and home once in a while. Though getting and giving your spouse and children everything money can buy is nice but not at the price of never seeing them or the lack of spending quality time with them.

 

The love of friends and family is more precious than any amount of money or gold.
Ray Barbier

 
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A Fork in the Road

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Concept Lately the cycle of life has really sped  up around me, so many pregnancies and people either dying or getting life threatening diseases. This world is speeding up and we are heading towards a fork in the path we are going down. One of the paths ahead is to a dismal and foreboding future of selfishness, greed and eventual depletion of natural resources. The other path though will be rocky and hard to follow leads us as a species to a future of peace, equality and the saving of our wonderful planet and home called earth. We can not continue to walk through life with a selfish and/or apathetic heart, we have to become humble, compassionate and take care of this world we live in. We are all on this rock together and not one race, religion,country or individual has any more or less rights to live here. We are all equal and are equally responsible for our home and the life forms that live within it.

MP900408941 Some of the rich and powerful believe they are superior or at least deserve a better life than the average and impoverished man. This is just plain selfish and heartless thinking and not true, it isn’t about wealth, power or even physical prowess but it is about the spirit and the heart. The common and impoverished are not as naïve or  as uninformed as the rich and powerful believe. We are waking up and seeing that we are not being treated equal in taxation and not being represented equally in our governments. Eventually the meek shall awaken out of their groggy state of mind and will help bring some of the change needed. Sometimes I see big business as a kind of bully, they raise prices to gain huge profits with no concern about if the average person can or can not afford it.  Nothing matters but the profit margin and the bonuses they get each year. They fill their banks with money that was earned by underpaid worker’s in both their home country and 3rd world countries .  I understand the need for profits, but to be too greedy and have no care about the workers or the consumers who helped build that wealth is just not a good business model. Eventual things will become so costly that only the rich will be able to afford to buy anything beyond just food. And since the rich are just a small percentage of the whole consumer base there will be a lot of businesses failing.

Human eye with the recycling emblem inside<br /><br />File contains gradientsThough not all of the current financial crises is the fault of big business a lot of it falls on the consumer as well by using credit to purchase items they can’t really afford to have as well as buying luxury items that they could have lived without. Then the credit card companies also have their part in the mess as well as the mortgage lenders. There is many reasons why our world is in such a financial mess and the blame falls all across the board. The solution will also have to come from each level of the financial pyramid in order to fix it all. Greed and Envy seem to be the root of most of the mess, the businesses want more money and the consumer wants to keep up with the people next door.

We better change direction and choose the better path in the fork ahead, if we don’t our children, grandchildren and the generations afterwards will be living in a very dark future. We need to take care of the imbalance of wealth and start taking care of our home.

Just a rant of a middle-aged man.

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Raymond Barbier

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we tend to forget about those we care about along the way

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oldfamIn the hustle and bustle of our modern world we tend to forget about those we care about along the way. Have you called your mom, dad, siblings or old friends? Have you told your mate how much they mean to you and how much you love them today? Have you had any quality time with your children today? When is the last time you sat down at the kitchen table and had a family meal and converse with your family about what happened today? It is so easy to allow work, stress, TV time and the everyday routine get in the way of sharing your life and time with those you love.

 

Just some thoughts for today.

Raymond Barbier

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The Family unit is the foundation to ones entire life

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p10061  Slow down and enjoy the little moments that make life so wonderful, for life is too short to waste it rushing around blind to the beauty of this world. Stop putting your job and or career before your family, friends and your own life. Yes we all must work, but working is not the sole purpose or meaning to our existence. Having fun with friends and family as well as some alone time are all  important parts to our short life that we live. We started working so we can pay the bills and to provide a decent lifestyle for ourselves and our family, but if that work consumes all of our time it leaves both ourselves and our families lacking in quality time together. It seems it is rare for a family to sit down and eat at the kitchen table anymore, daddy is at work, mommy is juggling being a mother and a working woman as the children run to their electronic escapes from the world.

The family unit is slowly dissolving or morphing into something with little closeness and that is very dysfunctional. Luckily there are still some families that function quite well, but they are becoming far and few between in this modern world. The family unit is where children learn their life skills and develop their emotional blueprints to their adult selves. For one of the most important things in life is the family unit and we need to start focusing on its development.  Though it may be hard to balance time between work, family, friends and yourself but it is a crucial element in the development of children to have a good home life. It will take an effort from every person within the family to maintain a functional family, every one will have to sacrifice something in order to make time to be together. For those sacrifices they will gain family closeness and well as love and respect between the family members.

The Family unit is the foundation to ones entire life, for a strong foundation can create a sturdy infrastructure.

May Love, Faith, Hope and wisdom guide your every footstep.
Raymond Barbier

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To be stuck in such a vicious cycle

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p10303 I have noticed a lot of people who go through life stuck in a vicious cycle of buying , using and wanting something more. It seems nobody can be satisfied with what they have, they want the newest and best of everything there is. Even when the newest isn’t necessarily better than what they already have. It doesn’t seem to stay just in the materialistic end of the spectrum, it is in every part of the modern psyche. From your house to your soul mate, nothing is ever good enough or there is greener grass on the other side of the fence. To be stuck in such a vicious cycle consumes your finances, energy and your happiness. The temporary gratification from the new wears off quickly leaving you wanting more. It seems modern society is addicted to consumerism and needs to reevaluate its priorities as well as its habits.

We need to revisit the ways of our grandparents and great grandparents, they lived their life in simplicity and only bought mostly only what they needed. They would buy a few luxuries but they knew happiness came from the people around them not trinkets or toys they can buy. There is nothing wrong with buying a few things you want but you should not be consumed with having every new version that comes out. Seems this generation and the generation growing up are stuck with the mentality that everything is disposable and replaceable. Shame is that this is not just limited to possessions, it also includes people in their lives. If a lover isn’t perfect just dump them and get a new one, if grandma is becoming a burden dump her into a rest home. If a friend becomes boring or disagrees with you toss them aside like a used tissue. This kind of mentality is corroding the core of society and eventually there will be nothing sacred or valuable in our world.

Family, friends and community should be the first priority for each one of us, keeping up with the Joneses or having the biggest and newest shouldn’t be a concern. For what makes lasting happiness is in the social groups we form and not in the trinkets we gather along the way. Since life is but a temporary state for all of us, we should live life in peace and loving one another instead of satisfying our selfish wants. I look at it in this way, I am not the only person or living creature on this planet. Thus I am not the center of the universe or even this planet. I share this world with so many and should enjoy the fact I have some great company here on earth. I will not always agree with them all, but I will always accept them as fellow travelers of this path called life.

Wrong or right, This is my 2 cents worth.

Raymond Barbier

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The family that eats, plays, prays and works together stays together.

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dd43853The family unit is one of the most important part of society. Without a functional family unit t individuals would have no preparation for the harsh realities of life we all face. Some families are more functional than others and there are some that are quite dysfunctional. One of the shortcomings I see in modern-day families is that once the children approach the preteen and/or teen years the family group activities diminish if not cease to exist. Without family group activities the communications between the family members become less frequent as well as the trust that the family should have. The once close connection between parents and children break down as well as the connection between siblings. I had first hand experience with some of the problems mentioned above. I watched what once was a close family drift apart as I grew older.

I know that some of it is just a part of growing up, but it seems families are not as close as they once were and that the basic communication skills are lacking in the family unit. The family that eats, plays, prays and works together stays together. The family unit is a child‘s first social group along with its only true support structure. The child learns right from wrong, how to communicate with others and how to relate with the world outside through this or her family. Eventually the family unit will become second to the child’s social peers, and if there was not a strong bond amongst the family unit the social peers will be the social group that will influence the child the most.

The children and teens of today are the leaders, thinkers and the creative force of tomorrow. They are our greatest asset and the family unit is our greatest tool in molding and shaping their future as well as our own. Just something for all you out there to think about .

Peace and Wisdom be your Guiding light in life.
Raymond Barbier

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